Web page...

Visit our web page... http://www.nightowlcraftworks.com/

A belated happy holidays and some goodbye news for this blog...

It's been a while!  We hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

I haven't posted in over a month I believe.  With a new year I've decided to make a big leap and try out a new look and a new blog site.  We have already imported all of our previous posts into the WordPress blog, so you will still have access to all of our content from the past 2 years!!!  I will leave the blogger site up, but will most likely post everything on our new site.  I've loved blogger.  I try to remember how frustrated I got with it at first, so as not to get too frustrated at the WordPress site.  After you learn how to use blogger it's wonderful.  I will miss it immensely.  I feel it's time to step out of the comfort zone & learn some new skills.  And if you know me, you know I do almost everything backwards.

There are a few reasons for this change.  WordPress is going to be hard for me to learn... but I'm hoping you all bear with me... because in the long run we have more control over the layout and offerings of the site.  We are mainly going to focus on getting an eCommerce section so you can purchase directly from us.  We aren't sure how this will all play out yet, but we're hoping it will be seamless.

So... this will be my last post on the blogger blog, and a new beginning for our wordpress blog.  Please subscribe to our feed at www.nightowlcraftworks.com  If you need help doing so, just drop me an email at nightowlcraftworks@gmail.com

Giveaway Winner! Rustique Art!

I wish we could give something to everyone who participated, but there can be only one :P  Thank you all for joining the fun and supporting our shop!  We appreciate you all very much!

Thanks Cindi!  You're our winner!!!  I'll be mailing out your package tomorrow <3

You can check out Cindi's shop here... rustiqueart

Mini Gallery; Rough Life... by guest curator RustiqueArt

Thank you to RustiqueArt for sharing this treasury!  

Visit her shop HERE!

It's Alive!!!

Last Saturday, after a month of waiting for a new propane regulator and parts for our chimney, we had our first firing. We decided that the first firing should be a bisque. Bisque firing hardens the pottery, but leaves it still able to absorb water. This allows you to handle the pottery more easily when dipping into our glazes.

  We were all a little nervous that the kiln would perform as we hoped it would, but soon after lighting the burners all of our fears melted away. There was still a little water in the arch, but other than a little steam, it didn't cause much trouble. 

The firing ended with both top and bottom dead even and plenty of propane pressure in reserve. With any luck our first glaze firing will go just as well.

Stay tuned for photos of the next firing and enjoy some photos of the inaugural run

!

Mini Gallery; Black Friday Etsy II by SweetlyFallen

Thank you to SweetlyFallen for sharing this treasury!  

Visit her shop HERE!

What are your purchases for this wonderful day <3

Mini Gallery; Over The River & Through the Woods to Grandmothers House We Go... by MollysMuses

Big thank you's to MollyMuses for submitting this treasury!  

Visit her shop HERE!

Who are you spending you Thanksgiving with? <3

Trunk Show Nov 30th & Dec 1st!

Etsy Lab Rats Team is hosting a virtual trunk show!  

What does it mean & how do you participate?

There will be many of our teammates offering deals online in real time (you have to be there to get the deals).  Some will even get on their webcam so you can meet the artists "face to face".  No, you don't need a webcam.  You can just spy on us ;)

You do need to sign in to your Etsy account.  The event will begin at 8PM EST on the 30th & 1st, if you get there a bit early you can get a good seat & chat with everyone in the room.  To find us... you can click on the Community tab, then Virtual Labs tab, then join us in the Moon Room (click the orange box).  Don't click on anything until the page loads fully, you might get kicked out & meet the error hamster... if this happens just try again.  You'll see a lot of little avatars in the white squares, click on an empty square to "take a seat".  Once you've taken a seat you can type in the chat bar at the bottom.  

Sit back & enjoy the offering of all our teammies :) 

What will WE be offering?  You'll have to join us to find out!  

Mike & I will (hopefully) both be on webcam on December 1st, so come on out & support the shop!  

We'd really appreciate it :D

THANK YOU!!!

Voila! A complete gas kiln!

Yay!  It's all finished up & looking beautyous!

So here's the final pics of the build.

Mike cutting a hole in the ceiling...

I climbed up there & cut out the supports & framed some of it in.  No pics of that... it was mostly my legs hanging out of the hole.  Mike was too busy (thankfully) spotting me to take pics.

The stack from the outside...

The regulator...

Mike made a little barrel stove for the barn to keep us warm this winter.  We were burning the paint off before we brought it in.  It's all installed & working wonderfully <3

We also got 1000 pounds of clay!

All put away in the studio <3

We weren't able to fire any ware this weekend.  We don't have enough to fill the kiln.  Mike did run it empty for a few hours to dry it all out & prep it.  It works so well!  I can't wait to take some pics of it all full of happy little pots.  I've even been throwing a little!  

The next question is what glaze colors should we make? :D

Our 2nd Year Etsiversary Giveaway!

December 17th will be our 2nd Etsiversary!!!

We are very excited!  It's been a long road.  Sometimes paved with many successes.  Sometimes paved with crippling lulls and "Why do we do this?" days.  What keeps us here?  The drive that we all have to create.  The knowledge that I know we can succeed.  Maybe it has been just that... that we have stuck it out for almost two years that convinces me that this is what we want to do for the rest of our lives.   Eventually we will have our own shop on premises.  A physical location.  We can sell & teach & foster more creativity.  

We are very lucky and happy to have an outlet for now that is a bit more low key, until we are ready to make that final push to our goal.  That goal in my mind is very very close.

I'd love it if you would help us celebrate our 2nd year online.
We'll be doing a wonderful giveaway, a mug & journal!
And here's how we'll do it...

For each step leave a comment, it will count as 1 entry.  

We'll choose a winner on December 17th.

Follow us on Twitter & tweet "Happy 2nd Etsiversary @nightowlcraft! Join the giveaway! http://bit.ly/afGMSB" and you'll get an entry, leave a comment.

Add our shop to your favorites, leave a comment

Join the newsletter, leave a comment

Like us on facebook, leave a comment

Follow the blog, leave a comment

Submit a mini gallery, leave a comment

Submit your mini gallery...

How?  Like so...

Step 1.  Create a poster sketch of either 9 or 12 shops.  They can have a theme, or not.  I'm just looking for some really awesome looking collections.  Bring your A game!

Step 2.  Email me the listing numbers.  nightowlcraftworks@gmail.com  If you'd like to add a screenshot I'd appreciate it... but it's not necessary.

Step 3.  Wait for me to get back to you letting you know if I've accepted the submission.

Good luck... you're name may soon be in lights!  OK... maybe not lights, but the title to the post ;)

Check out our previous submissions...
Guest Curated Mini Galleries

*the fine print... I will post to your Etsy shop in the blog post & make sure your shop name goes in the title.  Don't have a shop?  That's OK.  We'll talk :)  It's all about spreading the love <3  If you submit a sketch I may rearrange it if I deem it necessary for the look of the blog, but I will do my best to keep the submission original.

Questions?  Shoot me an email or leave a comment!

Gas lines are all in...

The door is all trimmed up & closes wonderfully!

And the burners are all plumbed...

And the tank is delivered...

The beginning of next week the regulator goes on & the tank gets filled.

We finally got the stack pipe, so guess what we'll be doing this weekend?  

Hopefully we won't get soaking wet & I can take pictures :D

Wish us luck!

Speed Networking for Creative Thinkers and Doers

What is this?  Here's the run down, it's kinda like speed dating... but NOT!  My artsy friends and I were having a cup o' joe at a local coffee shop, we were sharing ideas and websites and what works for us.  It was such a wonderful night & there was so much great energy Frank Juarez wanted to share that with others.  He contacted me and asked if I'd like to collaborate to work to bring creative's together to share ideas and network.  I was absolutely excited about the idea!  Spend more time at my fav coffee shop AND meet new peeps and gab all afternoon?!  Sh'ya!

So without further ado... the details...

             

How often do you network with others? When you have an idea what type of action do you take? What types of social networks would be appropriate to reach your audience? 

Are you looking for fresh ideas? Do you want to learn from the experience of others? Do you want to share what works for you?

Speed Networking for Creative Thinkers and Doers is an event, which will provide you ways on how to get yourself out there by spending 2 to 3 minutes with each participant and sharing what you do to live a creative and self-rewarding lifestyle. Topics can range from social media outlets, branding, online market places, and so on. 

Essentially, the first and only round is to break the ice amongst the participants. Once the round is complete, we will then begin to socialize amongst one another to learn more in depth about they found interesting or wanting to learn more of. 

Where: How often do you network with others? When you have an idea what type of action do you take? What types of social networks would be appropriate to reach your audience? 

Are you looking for fresh ideas? Do you want to learn from the experience of others? Do you want to share what works for you?

Speed Networking for Creative Thinkers and Doers is an event, which will provide you ways on how to get yourself out there by spending x amount of time with each participant and sharing what you do to live a creative and self-rewarding lifestyle. Topics can range from social media outlets, branding, online market places, and so on. 

Essentially, the first and only round is to break the ice amongst the participants. Once the round is complete, we will then begin to socialize amongst one another to learn more in depth about they found interesting or wanting to learn more of. 

Where: Paradigm Coffee + Music 

1202 N. 8th Street

Sheboygan, WI

When: December 5th from 1PM to 3PM

To participate, email Frank Juarez at effjayprojekts@gmail.com to register. 

Participation is free. 

RSVP by November 18th

organized by EFFJAY PROJEKTS and NightOwlCraftworks

Don't worry about bringing a pen & paper, we've gotcha covered ;)

I gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas Cover) Beef Tea String Band

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm putting up this wonderful video!  The dude with the gee-tar is my friend's husband & the person who taught me a bit about playing my bass.  I hope you enjoy the vid until I can get some content to slap up here :D

Getting to that time of year...

Every year I do the last minute dash to make as many Christmas gifts as possible!  This year I've decided to make a quilt for Hailey.  I purchased a Moda charm pack and I'm going to try out this quilt:

I cut out some of the fabrics, but I'm not loving the fabric I have for the white areas.  I'm not a big fan of dots. Does this mean a trip to the fabric shop?  Yes it does!  It's been so long since I've made a quilt I'm pretty excited about it!  

So what else could I do for the holiday push?  If you have any ideas or suggestions for kids and teens handmade gifts leave me a comment!  Please feed my holiday gift making psychosis!  It's the best kind really... and I wouldn't have it any other way!

Easily adding a link of posts to blogger...

When blogging you may do a weekly feature or some other sort of posts that you'd like people to find easily.  A nice way to show people the many things your blog has to offer is to add a link to these posts on the sidebar.  So without further ado...

First things first... make sure you tag your posts with the same tag to make them searchable.  This will be important to have the same tag in the posts related to the link on your sidebar.

Next you'll want to open your blog in two tabs.  The first to edit, the second to copy your searched url.

In the first window get your "edit layout" page ready.  You'll want to "add a gadget" to your sidebar, scroll down to "Link List" and add.  With that all open and ready to go, move on to the second tab.  

Now remember the tag you used for all your pertinent posts?  Go to your first post with that tag and click on it.  It will bring up all posts with that tag.  Copy that url into your "Link List" and give it a name :)  

Remember to save all your work!  You can drag the box around your "edit layout" page to position it where you'd like & sit back and ooo & ahh at all your hard work ;)

I'd like to give a little shout out to MollysMuses for always inspiring me to post little how to's... check out her blog & her Artist Interviews!

If anyone has any questions or problems please post a comment... I might have skipped something or confused you somehow.  If you don't understand it, there's a good chance someone else doesn't either.

THE ARCH SUPPORT IS OUT!

Finally!  Sorry for shouting there... but it's about time!  We get some nights or weekends to work on the kiln, so for the last 3 weeks our weekends have been dedicated to this kiln.  We're still not all there yet... but the really hard parts are done.  Next is plumping in the gas lines, then building the stack to vent the kiln.

I hope you enjoy watching our little video.  We took the support out hoping the whole ceiling would do what it's meant to & wouldn't cave in on us.  Success!

If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment :)

 

The Arch... retry

OK, so we dry stacked the arch.  Dry stacking means you use no mortar.  You just hope that all the brick does what it should... all stay & look wonderful.  Guess what?  It didn't.

We are artists in the best form.  Sometimes we throw caution to the wind and do things we think will work without looking things up or doing calculations.  Well, we had bricks sliding out and we had gaps after we pulled the arch form.  We put the arch form back in & took down ALL the bricks we had cut & put in.  It came out much quicker than it went together.

Now what?  Now we have the proper calculations for the angle on the brick (thanks to Mike & his math skills).  We are also going to mortar it all in... just in case ;)  So what does that mean?  That means that we will have to cut 160 new bricks for the arch.  We got half done yesterday.  I didn't realize how out of shape I was.  My stomach muscles are getting a great workout.  

It also means that my oldest daughter is playing mom while we get this accomplished.  She has been so great through all of this.  I'm hoping by Wednesday we'll be all done and I can take her to our favorite coffee place for the live paint event.  I think by then we'll both need a break.  

For those of you wondering why we don't have family coming over to help... we live 14 hours away from all of our families.  We moved out here almost 4 years ago for my husbands job.  It's times like these that I know how important family is, and how much every moment that we spend with them is appreciated!

We opened a Cargoh shop!

We're so proud to be a part of the Cargoh family!  This site is wonderful!  I'm not just saying that.  I'd shop there if we didn't have a shop page.  I love the look and functionality of the webshops.  You can follow people on their twitter, like their facebook page, or comment on their shop page!  I really like the favoriting & wishlists.  The best part?  If you like something, give it a fistbump!  It's cool, trust me ;)

Go to our shop page and leave us some love <3

We're still working on filling up our shop.  I was going to try to revamp our logo & banner to make it more Cargoh-ish.  A little more artsy & cutting edge.  I got too anxious to see our shop open so we'll just stick with what we have for now.

And while you're there check out a few other shops... 

If you have a Cargoh shop leave a link so I can check ya out!